The Usage of Maps in Facilitating Conversations with Stakeholders about Educational Desgregation in Hartford

Using spatial analysis tools such as GIS (Geographical Information Systems), this study maps the home addresses of city and suburban magnet school applicants, then uses the maps to start conversations with policy makers about how far students are willing to travel to attend certain schools

The Usage of Maps in Facilitating Conversations with Stakeholders about Educational Desegregation in Hartford

Using spatial analysis tools such as GIS (Geographical Information Systems), this study maps the home addresses of city and suburban magnet school applicants, then uses the maps to start conversations with policy makers about how far students are willing to travel to attend certain schools

Effects of the FitDesk on Work Performance in College Students

Being sedentary is a behavior that is practiced far too often by individuals. This is worrisome because evidence suggests that uninterrupted periods of sitting can be harmful to one’s health. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a cycling workstation, the FitDesk, on work performance, blood pressure, heart rate, and the energy expenditure of college students. It was hypothesized that pedaling with the FitDesk would not have an effect on college students’ typing performance, reading comprehension, and attention/information processing when compared to those sitting at the FitDesk. In addition, an acute reduction in blood pressure, increase in heart rate, and increase in energy expenditure was anticipated in those pedaling with the FitDesk. Twenty sedentary college students randomly assigned to complete a 30-min. pedaling condition and a 30- min. sitting condition using the FitDesk while performing three randomized tasks: a reading comprehension task, typing task, and an attention/information processing task. Energy expenditure and heart rate were assessed during each trial. Blood pressure was measured prior to the start of each trial and at the end of each trial. The results indicated that there were no significant differences in reading comprehension, typing performance, and attention/information processing tasks between the pedaling and sitting conditions. Heart rate, blood pressure, and energy expenditure significantly increased in the pedaling condition when compared to sitting condition. It was concluded that students could pedal with FitDesk and not influence work performance while increasing their energy expenditure, which may help with weight loss and reducing sedentary behavior

Measuring and reporting the capacity development performance of organizations in water and sanitation

Within the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector, a range of organizations offer education and training activities. The aim of these activities is to improve access to water and sanitation services through better design and implementation of WASH interventions (Broughton & Hampshire, 1997; Cracknell, 2000). However, it is often not clear how effective education and training activities are at achieving these objectives. A key challenge is lack of clarity on how the results of education and training in WASH should be measured and reported. In order to address this issue, CAWST (The Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology) and the Centre for Engineering for Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge conducted a review of measurement and reporting strategies of education and training organizations. Strengths, limitations and best practices were identified and used to develop recommendations for how CAWST, and other education and training organizations in the WASH sector, can improve the way they measure and report their results

Assessment of Dual Schistosome Infection Prevalence from Urine in An Endemic Community of Ghana By Molecular Diagnostic Approach

Schistosomiasis is an important Neglected Tropical Disease caused by blood parasites called schistosomes. In sub-Saharan Africa, two major human schistosomes, namely Schistosoma mansoni and S. haematobium, often occur sympatrically and is responsible for almost 90% of the affected 290 million people worldwide. We have utilized a highly sensitive and specific assay by amplifying species-specific cell-free repeat DNA fragments by polymerase chain reaction to detect either single or dual schistosome infection from a single urine sample from a broad age group. In this study, we have tested filtered urine samples collected from 163 individuals aged 3–63 years, mostly children (median age 10), to evaluate the prevalence of single and dual infections for S. mansoni and S. haematobium in Tomefa community in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. 40–50 mL of urine was filtered through a 12.5 cm Whatman # 3 filter paper in the field. The filter papers were dried, packed individually in sealable plastic bags with a desiccant, and shipped to Marquette University, where DNA was isolated and PCR amplification was carried out with species-specific primers. Disease prevalence was found to be 46.6% for S. mansoni and 48.5% for S. haematobium. Most importantly, 23.3% of participants had dual infections. All of the samples were detected without any cross amplification. The data was evaluated for four age groups and infection rate was highest for the age group of 3–12 years, with more S. haematobium infections than S. mansoni infections. We found a high prevalence of both S. haematobium and S. mansoni infection and a significant proportion of dual infection for the Tomefa community, which in most cases would be missed by traditional parasitological examination of urine or stool. Our highly sensitive and specific approach for detecting underlying multiple schistosome infections is an effective means to detect low intensity infections and would enhance the effectiveness of surveillance and Mass Drug Administration control programs of schistosomiasis

Understanding Wales: Nationalism and Culture

In the spring of 2013 ten students from the University of North Carolina Wilmington participated in a study abroad program in Wales attending Swansea University for the semester. As a group, we began examining Welsh culture and identity. Living abroad provided many opportunities to collect data and make observations about Welsh life. Our initial observations pointed to a tension that seemed to exist between Welsh and English cultures. We found this tension noteworthy and decided to examine it more closely through an exploratory research project examining Welsh political and economic history, Welsh culture and Welsh nationalism through participant observation, field trips and face-to-face interviews

Social Determinants of Health in Dunn, NC - Advocacy Toolkit

This folder contains a public health advocacy toolkit created by the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP)’s 2020-2021 Capstone Team at University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. The 2020-2021 SOHP Capstone team worked on the ongoing SOHP Stories to Save Lives project, which collected a series of oral histories from rural North Carolinians about their experiences living, working, and receiving and providing healthcare. The team analyzed 38 unique oral histories that had been collected from patients and providers at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) based in Dunn, NC between 2018 and 2019. Based on these histories, the team assembled these products to advocate for change and improvements to social determinants of health that had affected the narrators of these oral histories

MPH Capstone experiences: promising practices and lessons learned

To ensure workforce readiness, graduate-level public health training programs must prepare students to collaborate with communities on improving public health practice and tools. The Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) requires Master of Public Health (MPH) students to complete an Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) at the end of their program of study that yields a high-quality written product demonstrating synthesis of competencies. CEPH suggests written products ideally be “developed and delivered in a manner that is useful to external stakeholders, such as non-profit or governmental organizations.” However, there are limited examples of the ILE pedagogies and practices most likely to yield mutual benefit for students and community partners. To address this gap, we describe a community-led, year-long, group-based ILE for MPH students, called Capstone. This service-learning course aims to (1) increase capacity of students and partner organizations to address public health issues and promote health equity; (2) create new or improved public health resources, programs, services, and policies that promote health equity; (3) enhance student preparedness and marketability for careers in public health; and (4) strengthen campus-community partnerships. Since 2009, 127 Capstone teams affiliated with the Department of Health Behavior at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have worked with seventy-nine partner organizations to provide over 103,000 h of in-kind service and produce 635 unique products or “deliverables.” This paper describes key promising practices of Capstone, specifically its staffing model; approach to project recruitment, selection, and matching; course format; and assignments. Using course evaluation data, we summarize student and community partner outcomes. Next, we share lessons learned from 13 years of program implementation and future directions for continuing to maximize student and community partner benefits. Finally, we provide recommendations for other programs interested in replicating the Capstone model

HIV in MOTION: a community of practice on physical rehabilitation for and by people living with HIV and their allies

BackgroundThis paper describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a community of practice (CoP), HIV in MOTION (HIM), to advance physical activity rehabilitation interventions with adults living with HIV, clinicians, researchers, and representatives from community-based organizations. We attracted a diverse audience of geographically dispersed people living with HIV, clinicians, exercise personnel, and trainees to eight HIM community of practice events that featured the clinical, research, and lived experience of people living with HIV. HIV in MOTION had (a) a domain related to physical rehabilitation, exercise, and social participation for people living with HIV; (b) a community of diverse individuals; and (c) a practice, that is, a series of sustained interactions online and offline, synchronous, and asynchronous. Our team included six diverse people living with HIV, two coordinators, and three academic researchers who planned, prepared, implemented, and evaluated each online session. To evaluate the HIV in MOTION CoP, we employed an evaluation framework composed of five criteria: Goals and Scope, Context and Structure, Process and Activities, Outcomes, and Impact. We collected quantitative and qualitative evaluative data using online evaluation, audiovisual archiving, and participant observations during the debriefing with all members of our team.ResultsWe widened the Goals and Scope of the HIV in MOTION CoP to include the HIV narrative of lived experiences, including autopathography, and participant storytelling. In matters of Context and Structure, we received explicit satisfaction with our governance and leadership. Also, being flexible to fit online formats was a productive strategy that made the HIV in MOTION CoP sessions agile and amenable to audiovisual archiving. Our indicators of success in Process, Activities, and Outcomes included participant retention online, elicited verbal interventions and comments in the chat room, and a rate of three repeat visits online. The indicators of success of Impact were the presence of voluntary and unscripted autopathography, the patient storytelling and how it reportedly caused changes in the participants, and the “legitimate peripheral participation” of emerging research and clinical students. In conclusion, we recommend our form of CoP for mixing the knowledge of diverse persons in this area. However, we recommend considering budget and burnout as serious challenges to sustainability

High-Frequency Dynamics of Ocean pH: A Multi-Ecosystem Comparison

The effect of Ocean Acidification (OA) on marine biota is quasi-predictable at best. While perturbation studies, in the form of incubations under elevated pCO2, reveal sensitivities and responses of individual species, one missing link in the OA story results from a chronic lack of pH data specific to a given species' natural habitat. Here, we present a compilation of continuous, high-resolution time series of upper ocean pH, collected using autonomous sensors, over a variety of ecosystems ranging from polar to tropical, open-ocean to coastal, kelp forest to coral reef. These observations reveal a continuum of month-long pH variability with standard deviations from 0.004 to 0.277 and ranges spanning 0.024 to 1.430 pH units. The nature of the observed variability was also highly site-dependent, with characteristic diel, semi-diurnal, and stochastic patterns of varying amplitudes. These biome-specific pH signatures disclose current levels of exposure to both high and low dissolved CO2, often demonstrating that resident organisms are already experiencing pH regimes that are not predicted until 2100. Our data provide a first step toward crystallizing the biophysical link between environmental history of pH exposure and physiological resilience of marine organisms to fluctuations in seawater CO2. Knowledge of this spatial and temporal variation in seawater chemistry allows us to improve the design of OA experiments: we can test organisms with a priori expectations of their tolerance guardrails, based on their natural range of exposure. Such hypothesis-testing will provide a deeper understanding of the effects of OA. Both intuitively simple to understand and powerfully informative, these and similar comparative time series can help guide management efforts to identify areas of marine habitat that can serve as refugia to acidification as well as areas that are particularly vulnerable to future ocean change